Sunday, 15 March 2015

Ancient #Rome ’s Port City

What was once a mighty port for ships
carrying food, building supplies, and other commodities into and out of
Rome is now a mighty port for airplanes shuttling people to and from
that city. The ancient, artificial harbor of Portus has blended into the
flat, coastal landscape of Fiumicino, Italy.

Situated about 30 kilometers (20 miles) southwest of Rome, Portus was
built in the first and second century of the modern era, and it became
the Roman Empire’s leading maritime hub for nearly 500 years. Some
historians and archaeologists consider it one of the Romans’ greatest
engineering achievements.

At a time when the Tyrrhenian Sea coast was at least a kilometer or two east of the modern shoreline,
Roman engineers, laborers, and slaves first carved the Claudian Basin
out of the coastline. The artificial harbor was commissioned around 46
A.D. by Emperor Claudius and was to be sited on the north bank of the
Tiber River about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) north of the port of Ostia.
Taking nearly 20 years to complete, the new port was nearly a mile wide,
spanned 70 hectares (170 acres), and included two sea walls and a
lighthouse.

Portus was created as a supplement to Ostia, which could no longer
handle the volume of commerce needed to supply the growing city of Rome.
Around 103 A.D., Emperor Trajan expanded Portus, carving out another 39
hectares (97 acres) in a distinctive hexagonal shape. The inner
Trajanic Basin connected to the outer Claudian Basin and the sea; it was also connected to the Tiber via canal. The port was eventually surrounded by great columned warehouses and a palace, among many other amenities. Once expanded, Portus hosted as many as 350 ships at a time, archaeologists believe.

The ancient port has been the subject of intense study since 2007.
Researchers from the University of Southampton, the British School at
Rome, the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma, and
the University of Cambridge have brought everything from geophysical
mapping tools and computer modeling together with old-fashioned
archaeological digging to learn more about the ancient port. Recently,
the effort yielded evidence of a great canal connecting Portus to the
other famous Roman port at Ostia.

Just north of the Trajanic Basin, Leonardo da Vinci International
Airport now covers some of the area of the old port. The airport is
Italy’s largest and the sixth largest in Europe, handling about 38
million passengers per year. To the south is the town of Fiumicino, a
name that means “little river.”